322 Doubts Relative to the Epochal and 



From this period till the completion of the cretaceous 

 system, the same forces, acting more equally and regularly, 

 were increasing the general area of the land above that of 

 the water ; and after this system was nearly completed, the 

 tertiary rocks were ushered in by a general and violent 

 action of forces which had been long at work as slow and 

 almost, at parts, imperceptible elevating forces, but were 

 now put forth in all their plenitude and grandeur, as the 

 lofty summits of the Alps, the Pyrenees, and the Andes, with 

 many others, significantly attest ; and by such process of 

 elevation, in a short period, the relations between land and 

 sea approximately assimilated themselves to those pertaining 

 to the historic era of man. 



Thus from the silurian to the permian, and from the 

 permian to the cretaceous or lower tertiary, the land has 

 been continually gaining in area at the expense of the sea, 

 and the fauna and flora have become more terraceous in 

 their structure and habits, and their organization has more 

 and more rapidly assimilated itself to the necessities and 

 conditions of land habitation. 



With this increasing elevation of the land, rivers and 

 fresh-water lakes became more common and extensive ; 

 animals of a higher order became more general ; whilst the 

 flora of the tertiary series exhibited in elegant contrast the 

 trees and plants of tropical with those of more temperate 

 regions, the soil being carpeted with mosses and grasses 

 analogous to those now existing, where the exogenous and 

 endogenous growths blend and contrast with each other, 

 and frequently succumb and rot through the officious attach- 

 ment of their less honoured but more tenaciously vital 

 neighbours, the cellularies and their allies. 



From, therefore, the foregoing review of the effects of the 

 elevating forces, and the onward progress in the floral and 

 faunal development, it may be inferred that, at least, in the 



